1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to disk drives, and in particular to a method of fabricating disk drives using a common disk drive base with an attached weight plate, and a disk drive including the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The typical hard disk drive includes a head disk assembly (HDA) and a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) attached to a disk drive base of the HDA. The head disk assembly includes the disk drive base, a cover, at least one magnetic disk, a spindle motor for rotating the disk, and a head stack assembly (HSA) that includes a transducer head supported by a slider for reading and writing data from and to the disk.
In certain applications, such as for use in consumer set top audio video applications, it is critical that the disk drive generated self-induced vibration is kept below minimum specified levels. Such vibration coupled with a poor chassis design that the disk drive is intended to be installed may result in vibrations that generate acoustic noise. Acoustic noise is a major source of distraction in such applications. In this regard, for such applications there are typically strict specifications for both disk drive vibration and overall vibration induced acoustic noise. Other applications, such as for desktop personal computers, may have much lower vibration specifications, even though such disk drives may otherwise meet desired memory capacity and speed performance requirements.
There is a need in the art for an improved method of manufacturing disk drives and improved disk drives in comparison to the prior art.